In one of her dreams, Claudia Gil-Osorio is standing in the middle of a stadium, looking up at banks of lights and listing to the cheers of thousands of fans. She has her soccer uniform on and the ball is sitting on the field, waiting for her to kick it.

In another dream, Gil-Osorio is talking to members of the United States women’s World Cup soccer team. She has a long conversation with the most famous womens soccer player in the world, Mia Hamm. Though it goes unspoken, the two of them might even notice they wear their hair the same way, in a pony tail.

This is what goes on in the dreams of the young woman who may be the finest soccer player to ever kick a ball for South Whidbey High School. And if you think her dreams are exciting, watch what she can do when she’s awake.

Having scored 32 goals and three hat tricks during the Falcons’ run to a runner-up state placing and a 21-1 season record, Gil-Osorio, a senior forward for the team, was recently named the North Cascades Conference offensive player of the year. She is the all-time single-season scoring leader among all soccer players at her school. She is also among the fastest with the school record in the 100-meter dash, 12.64 seconds.

Paul Arand, the Falcons’ head coach throughout Gil-Osorio’s career, said he knew the team had found something special when the striker joined the team as a freshman. She would go on to close out her rookie season by scoring the winning goal in the state 2A third-place game.

“I knew she was impressive,” he said. “I can tell by the way the other teams react to her.”

But beneath the numbers and the honors, Claudia Gil-Osorio is a soccer player in the fiber of her very being, which is why she is the player she is. While she is an exemplary student — she takes Running Start classes at Edmonds Community College — is a track and field record holder, and has been a pretty good cross country runner at times (she ran for the Falcons as a sophomore, passing up that year’s soccer season), there is nothing in her life that consumes as much energy, thought and effort as the game of soccer.

“I dream about it so much,” said Gil-Osorio, laughing the giddy laugh of a girl in love with soccer.

Those dreams were, in a way, whispered into her ear by her father, Dario Gil-Osorio. A Columbia native and former soccer player, the elder Gil-Osorio took his daughter to high school and college soccer games. Claudia Gil-Osorio said her father would explain how plays developed, what players were doing right and what they were doing wrong.

“All I knew (about soccer) was with my Dad,” she said.

Gil-Osorio took this to heart, practicing what she had learned during family soccer games at the park. With older sister Deanna in goal and younger sister Martha-Rocio to play against, the girl who would one day take South Whidbey to a state championship game honed her skills on a three-person team until her family moved to Whidbey Island in 1998. That is when she discovered youth soccer and, more important in her mind, lunch-time soccer. Kicking the ball around the Langley Middle School yard, she met future teammates such as Katie Watson, Allyson Riggs, Willa Purser and her 2003 Falcon co-captain Natalie Schmidt.

It was with these teammates around her that Gil-Osorio was able to provide the fuel for South Whidbey’s incredible run this fall. The fastest player on the field in every game she played this season, she regularly used what seemed to soccer spectators an extra gear to blow past defenders on her way to the goal. One of the more graceful players on her team — she is not known for charging headlong into the opposing defense like Watson or her fellow striker, sophomore Jenna Wild — Gil-Osorio specializes in being in the right place at the right time. Using unconventional shots, such as her over-the-head “toe flick,” and her dead-accurate headers, she put as many goals in the net off great assisting shots as she did on drives she engineered herself.

She gives particular credit to Watson, who would signal Gil-Osorio to look for a pass from her by tapping her forehead.

“She knows how to place the ball so well,” she said of her teammate.

It was when that partnership vanished during the state 2A championship game against Connell two weeks ago that its importance became most noticeable. Watson went out of the game early with a knee injury, leaving Gil-Osorio with few balls to kick at the goal. The team would go on to lose the game in a shootout.

Most telling about Gil-Osorio’s drive as a soccer player has been how she has dodged the obstacles in her athletic career. During middle school, she injured her hip, hurting it to the point that she had to sit out much of her sophomore track season and junior soccer season. It took a special brace and a year’s worth of physical therapy to get her back up to speed.

As the Falcons started state tournament play, Gil-Osorio had her toughest struggle. Infected with the flu, she wound up missing the last game of the regular season. Her parents knew their daughter would continue trying to play, so they checked her into Overlake Hospital for six days. She got out just hours before playing — and scoring — against Nooksack Valley in a state seeding game.

She didn’t accomplish these feats alone. She said her team and her family are her inspirations. At most soccer games this season, her entire family was in the stands.

“Wherever you see us, you see all five of us,” said her mother, Martha Gil-Osorio.

With her final season of high school soccer over, Gil-Osorio’s drive to play her sport and to win has her thinking mostly ahead, even as she leaves longtime teammates behind.

“I will miss this team, but I can’t dwell,” she said. “I was just lucky to be on this team.

Gil-Osorio has spoken with several college recruiters and is in the process of deciding where she will continue her education and her soccer career. At this point, she is not sure whether that will be close to home. But move on she must, if she is to follow her dreams.